


Know Thy Dreamers

by ChaiDreamLatte



Category: NiGHTS into Dreams
Genre: Gen, High School, Know thyself, Library
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 02:59:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13538253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaiDreamLatte/pseuds/ChaiDreamLatte
Summary: Claris has been having weird dreams of a Nightmaren that looked like her.  Meanwhile, high school is no easy ride for Claris; so she breaks the books and tries to find out what's going on.  Only to find some information on Nightmaren she never knew.





	1. Know Claris Sinclair

Know Thy Dreamers

Know Claris Sinclair

Andra Fable

 

 

Gray clouds surrounded Claris, last thing she knew she was sleeping before the end of summer and her first day of high school. So this must be a dream. Yet it seemed awfully… dark to be a dream. Claris thought that defeating Wizeman last spring would stop everyone from having nightmares.

A white feathered ball appeared in front of Claris and sprouted out of the ball was… Claris. Only that the creature looked different. She had a jester hat very well like NiGHTS, a flowing orange shirt and a hot pink vest, plus, there were the wings that glittered in white, red, green, yellow, and blue. They just looked aimlessly at Claris until Claris had to say something.

“Who are you?” Claris asked.

“Know thyslef,” was all the creature said before the dream ended.

 

* * *

 

Orientation was pretty standard. Claris has in honors track, which was pretty cool. Claris knew she’d end up in Twins Community College, but that’s because college was expensive. Also, there were clubs at high school. Claris thought she had an automatic entry to the choir since she starred in the city’s musical: Twin Dreams.

Claris went to her first class, Algebra I, and she sat next to a girl who was drawing on her notebook. She smiled and said, “hi, I’m Claris.”

The girl scoffed, then looked down at her drawing. Claris tried to looked over to see what she was drawing, but the girl immediately closed her notebook.

The class started, and it was just reviewing through what was going to be covered for the semester. That was what all the classes were like. Claris daydreamed about that sort of nightmare she had about the creature that told her to know herself. Maybe a trip to the library might help? Oh wait, she wanted to talk to the choir director first. Maybe another day then?

 

* * *

 

Claris walked into the office of the choir director. She had black hair, and her eyes had a surrounding of gray eyeliner. She looked at Claris and said, “auditions are next week.”

Claris nodded her head, “I know, but I just wanted to meet you before I audition.”

“There’s no reason to,” said the choir director, “Either you sing well or you don’t. Seeing I’ve never met you before, you’re a freshman. You probably won’t make the cut.”

“Why not?” asked Claris.

“Freshmen never do, they sound too much like children,” the director stood up, “now I need to go to the bathroom, why not go do your homework?”

“But…” Claris stuttered from the director’s brashness, then yelled out: “I was in Twin Dreams, that has to count for something!”

The director stopped right on her step and looked at Claris, “I knew you looked familiar. You sounded like a child then, but we’ll see how you sound now.”

 

* * *

 

 

Gray clouds surrounded Claris again and the same ball of feathers appeared in front of her, and hatched as that same nightmaren. “Seriously though, who are you?”

“Know thyself,” was all the creature said.

“How am I supposed to?” asked Claris, “I probably won’t make it to choir, I am not making any friends at school, and classes are boring. I don’t know if I have time to even know myself.”

The creature flew over to Claris and sat on the air next to her, “Know thyself.” The creature soon disapeared.

 

* * *

 

Claris finally made it to the library the next day. She was guided to the nonfiction section to Philosophy and Psychology section, Dewey Decimal Number 126. She mostly found self help books, but found one that caught her eye, “Know Thyself by Natalie Mare.” The book looked self published, but she grabbed the book as well as a few Greek philosophy books.

Claris read an allegory about these people who were in a cave seeing projected shadows as the truth, but that getting out of the cave will show a truth. Then she looked at Know Thyself, where she read a story from the point of view of a young lady who was having troubles knowing herself. She was older than Claris, but went to the same high school in the 1990s. She was in marching band, but also wanted to perform in the drama club…

“Hey Claris!” Claris looked up to see a boy with blue hair and a dark green hoodie. He smiled at her and looked down at the books, “studying up for school already? Didn’t know you were interested in philosophy.”

“Not really,” said Claris, when she realized she was in a library with Elliot, she thought he hated reading. “What are you doing here?”

“I met some guys at school who played Minecraft, and they were showing me the roots.” Elliot explained at Claris. So it was more of his gaming? “It’s a really fun game where you create building and stuff, wanna try?”

Claris had heard of Minecraft, and it sounded pretty interesting when she saw two boys huddling over the computer playing. Yet Claris needed to do more research. It was kind of hard, since the ‘self’ was kind of an abstract concept. She stood up, “I actually have to get home to dinner.”

 

* * *

 

The reoccurring nightmaric dream has happened again. Claris knew a little bit more, so she could ask the creature more questions.

“So you are the reality of what is true?” Claris asked, “what I am seeing in myself is just a shadow, and I need to know the real me?”

“There is more or less to knowing yourself than you may imagine,” said the creature, “to know that is to know me.”

 

* * *

 

Claris ate her Nutella and fluff sandwich in the hallway when she saw two girl walking by. Claris put her feet up to give them room. One girl said, “thank you.”

The other girl looked at Claris and exclaimed, “you’re the girl from Twin Dreams!” She had brown hair, brown eyes, and glasses. Those glasses probably gave her a good observation of Claris’ last and only performance. The girl knelt down to shake Claris’ hand, “it’s so good to meet you, I’m Riley Fitzgerald.”

The other girl had green hair and green eyes, she looked at Claris and smiled, “want to sit with us? We both know how hard it is for freshmen to make friends; we had troubles until we met each other.”

It was better than sitting in the hallway. Claris shrugged and joined them.

The girls were discussing some sort of story about some guy who lied about his name to seduce a girl on the way to the lunch room. When they sat down, Claris asked, “what are you guys talking about?”

“The Importance of Being Ernest,” said the green haired girl, “the name’s Gretchen Mare by the way.”

Gretchen had the same name as Natalie Mare, the author of Know Thyself; probably a mere coincidence. “Is this a book? Sounds kind of good.”

“No, it’s the play the freshmen are performing,” said Riley, “At the end of every year the graduating seniors choose a play that the rising freshmen perform. It not only gives a chance to the freshmen to put together a play, but also gives the graduating seniors the power to have their favorite play performed.”

“Last year they chose The Bald Soprano,” Gretchen explained, “it was really random; some kind of prank, since one of the seniors was siblings with one of the upcoming freshmen.”

“Only that our production might be just as bad,” Riley sighed, “the girl playing Gwendoline dropped out, and we can’t really go on without a crucial character.”

“That’s too bad,” said Claris.

“Would you like to give it a shot?” Riley asked Claris with pure sincerity, “you can read it over and decide. We’re practicing this afternoon at the stage.”

 

* * *

 

This might be an opportunity to know Claris’ self. Claris showed up to the theater she read more of Know Thyself, she borrowed the book out of curiosity of why it was in the library in the first place. It seems like a local book, just a tad too personal to be in the main collection.

Gretchen showed up and gave Claris a script, “stop reading what you’re reading; and read this.”

The script seemed to be printed from the school’s computer lab. She read through the first few pages when she saw Natalie read the book that Claris was reading.

Gretchen began to shiver and her green eyes began to darken like Mystic Forrest, “how did you get this book?”

“Um, the library?” Claris said, “I’ve been having reoccurring dreams being told to know myself and began to do some research into it’s meaning.”

“Dreams?” Gretchen asked. She flipped through the book and began to read outloud, “a purple jester with wings began to tell me to know myself. I had no clue what they meant. They looked a lot like me, but I have been seeing their point.”

Claris became silent. That dream seemed similar to what she was dreaming about. She took another look at the script, “This is pretty funny.”

Gretchen began to smile, “Oscar Wilde was a riot, wasn’t he? I feel lucky that last year’s seniors chose this play. I really love it.”

“Who are you playing?” Claris asked.

“Oh, I’m the director,” said Gretchen.

 

* * *

 

Claris made some warm milk with honey and read the book some more. Natalie seemed very similar to Claris. It almost seemed like Claris was a friend of Natalie once. She fell asleep in hopes of seeing that mysterious creature again.

Instead, she was in a blocky world that seemed a lot like that Minecraft game that Elliot liked to play. Everything looked like a construction site, with a lot of falling rocks. She saw a blocky figure with blue hair. “Elliot?”

Indeed, it was Elliot. “I’ve been building worlds like the ones I’ve been dreaming about,” Elliot explained, “I never knew that their computers versions can show up in my dreams.”

A blocky purple jester showed up with a confused look on their face, “what happened to Stick Canyon?”

“Oh, this is a version of Stick Canyon that I made in Minecraft,” Elliot explained, “it’s a computer game where you can build things, and interact with others online to show what’s built."

“Online? Like Ultima Online?” NiGHTS asked, “must rack up the phone bill to take all of that time to rebuild entire Nightopias.”

“Oh, I play in the library, so it’s free,” said Elliot.

“Libraries have internet?” NiGHTS’ eyes grew wider than they usually were. 

“Yeah,” said Claris, “most people use the library for internet.”

“Your library must be rich,” NiGHTS mumbled.

“Well, internet is paid by flat monthly basis,” Elliot explained, “so even with budget cuts, our branch can still thrive.”

Something seemed off about NiGHTS, more off than it usually was. Claris had to ask a few questions to this blocky jester, “Wait, NiGHTS, how do you know about the internet?”

NiGHTS closed their eyes and sighed, “I don’t know.”

“What do you know of the waking world?” Claris asked.

NiGHTS closed their eyes tighter in attempt to remember: “I remember a city with a clock tower in the center. A girl with green hair and green eyes. A boy with black hair and red streaks. A school where people studied and played music. There was also acting out stories. There was also one going on about a trial against magic users. I also remember a book with blank pages, getting fuller and fuller as time progressed.”

Elliot and Claris looked at each other. This all seemed weird. NiGHTS had memories of Twin Seeds beyond what they both dreamed before they defeated Wizeman.

And all the sudden. Claris knew herself. She was a growing piece of art. She was a singer, an actor, someone to bring out others’ stories. Everything faded to clouds and she was eye to eye with the pink creature with Ideya colored wings. “I am an incomplete work,” said Claris, “I am an experiment. This is who I am.”

“But there is a way to be complete,” said the creature that looked like Claris. She took out her hand, and the creature took Claris’ hand, and they became one.

_I am Selph._

_You are no longer Claris, for you know thyself._

_You are now CLouD._


	2. Know Elliot Edwards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elliot has been having a good time in high school, especially with new friends and a new game to play. Yet something is strange about Claris...

Know Thy Dreamers

Know Elliot Edwards

Andra Fable

 

 

Elliot had a great time at high school orientation. He was in track for College with the classes he was taking, and he’s confident he’ll make it to varsity freshmen year. Life was great!

At lunch, Elliot ate his ham and cheese sandwich early, so he went to the computer lab to start some homework. Only to see two young men playing this sort of blocky 3D game. His eyes kept on trailing to the other computer screen rather than his homework. It became enough that the two other young men were noticing.

“Wanna see?” asked a boy with green hair and green eyes, “it’s pretty cool.”

Elliot stood up and saw what was going on. It seemed as though this boy has made a farm, and all of the animals were pink.

“I dyed them all pink, and their kids seem to be pink too,” the boy explained, then he became sarcastic, “because that’s totally how genetics work.”

The other boy laughed. He had blonde hair and light brown eyes to the point that they look golden, “I made a mine under my house, so I’m a pretty good resource for material.”

Elliot observed the game further, “so you gather resources, and you just build things?”

They both nodded their heads.

“Can I try?” Elliot asked.

 

* * *

 

Basketball tryouts weren’t for another week, so Elliot began to practice his moves. Yet his mind kept on going back to that game…. Not any basketball game, but the computer game. Elliot hadn’t been one to play video games, but this one seemed to inspire him more than… basketball. Sure, basketball takes a lot of creativity with strategy and good reflexes, which Elliot had. Yet he didn’t really create anything.

Yet there were no scholarships for video games, so he kept on practicing. No issue with playing both sports and video games.

* * *

 

It got to the point that Elliot played basketball after school some days, then went to the public library other days to play Minecraft other days. Elliot thought that it was a good balance between having two kinds of fun.

He met Claris there a few times, he wanted to show her the game, but she seemed standoffish. She was reading a lot of philosophy books, and some self published book that looked stapled together. After one of the conversations, Gregory Mare; the green haired friend mentioned something: why is she reading Know Thyself?

“The stapled together one?” Elliot asked, “I don’t know. Have you read the book?”

Greg shook his head, yet he looked down, “about 20 years ago, my aunt disappeared, like vanished. When my mom looked at her diary, there was a lot of interesting aspects. So she printed it out, and handed it around our school.

“To help remember your aunt?” Elliot asked.

“To remember her, and also to help us know that we, as high schoolers, are works in progress. We are not perfect. For example: You’ve played basketball for years, but now you’re playing Minecraft as well. We are all at a point where we are forced to figure out who we are in four years, and it’ll impact our adulthood. Natalie was striving for perfection too early, and then she disappeared.”

She might have ran away from home from the stress. Well, at least Elliot knew not to strive for perfection. He knew he would do well enough for the varsity basketball team, and he could also play this neat game.

Caleb, the other boy gave Elliot a flyer for a computer programming Makerspace that weekend. That looked pretty cool.

 

* * *

 

Elliot was primarily working on a replica of Stick Canyon, a Nightopia that he created in his dreams. It seemed unusual that he began to dream of the unfinished work. He saw Claris there, but as if she was a Minecraft character. NiGHTS was also there. Claris soon disappeared when she said that she was an unfinished work.

When Elliot woke up, he knew this was a bad sign. He took the metro to Claris’ house, and knocked on the Sinclair residence door. Claris’ dad opened the door and Elliot asked, “is she alright?”

Mr. Sinclair looked down, “she wasn’t in her bed when I woke her up. I’ve tried to call 911, but they said to wait 24 hours.”

“Can I look in her room?” Elliot asked.

 

* * *

 

Elliot took the book Claris borrowed and began to read it on his way home, then into the kitchen of his family’s apartment. He knew that he would miss the Makerspace, but Caleb said that they occurred weekly. He read and read, until he began to notice the voice of the writing…

Was Natalie really NiGHTS?

She played the flute, was quite flamboyant, and even said that she didn’t identify was a woman, but not quite a man. There was also her boyfriend: Ryan, who seemed kind of familiar as well. NiGHTS said that they remembered a clocktower, a girl with green hair and green eyes, and a boy with black hair and red streaks. That was how Natalie described her sister and her boyfriend in the book. Elliot read on to see the last chapter. It was her dreaming of a purple jester with red, white, yellow, green, and blue wings saying, “Know thyself.” That jester looked just like NiGHTS, but didn’t act like NiGHTS.

This was weird.

Elliot’s big brother, Ian, just woke up as he rubbed his eyes. He worked night shift at a convenience store, so he usually woke up mid day. Yet it was 11:00AM, so it was kind of early for him.

“Gosh, I had the worst nightmare; I haven’t had one since spring,” Ian groaned.

Elliot thought no one was to have nightmares ever again ever since he saved Nightopia. Something was us, “what was it about?”

“Someone was stealing the slushie machine with a bucket, usual anxiety stuff, but for a slip second, I saw a pink jester.”

“Are you sure it isn’t purple?” Elliot asked.

“No, I’m sure she was pink.” Ian rubbed his eyes from tiredness, “She looked kind of like your girlfriend. Clarice was it?”

“Claris, and we aren’t dating,” Elliot mumbled. Just because his friend is a girl, doesn’t mean she’s his girlfriend.

Elliot put down the book; he knew there was something he had to do in Nightopia. Yet first: he needed to think that he was incomplete. Well, of course he was incomplete, he was still a teenager, but he needed to seem like he wasn’t accepting it. Yet fist: go to the library to meet his friends. He might still have some time to at least see the makerspace.

 

* * *

 

Only that they were all in the middle of a major project. Elliot went into the Teen area and watched his Greg, a green haired girl, and Caleb trying to make a website.

The girl was named Gretchen: Greg’s twin sister. She went to try to make a website for the Freshmen Play this year. She had a synopsis of the play, a list of characters and who played them, and some sketches for the set design and costumes. The others were helping her program the site with HTML and CSS.

Elliot though this was cool. The Teen Librarian was going to close up the Makerspace soon, but Elliot was excited for next week so he could actually start to learn computer programming.

“Why didn’t you join us for the Makerspace today?” asked Greg.

“My friend Claris had disappeared,” Elliot looked down, he knew he’d have to admit it eventually. He just didn’t want to admit this to his new friends.

Gretchen’s eyes went wide, “Claris was thinking about playing Gwendoline. Now we have no one to play Gwendoline! I knew something was up when she was reading Aunt Nat’s book.”

“You mean this book?” Elliot took out the stapled together book titled: Know Thyself. “Greg told me your aunt also disappeared. I might know what’s going on though.”

“Wait, you know where our aunt is?” Gretchen’s eyes went wider, “Does that mean you know where Claris is?”

“It’s all speculation,” Elliot sighed, “but there is a creature from the dreamworld who turns incomplete teenagers to something in their image and they are kept in the dreamworld for an eternity.” He opened the book to the last few pages, “it’s the purple jester Natalie saw in her dream, yet… they aren’t. I also dream of a purple jester who acts and talks a lot like Natalie, but not like the jester in her dreams. My brother also dreamed of a jester who looks a lot like Claris.”

Everyone just stared at Elliot in disbelief. “You mean that there’s a dreamworld?” Gretchen asked.

Elliot nodded his head, “yes, when humans dreams their subconscious goes to this world called Nightopia. I am very lucid, so I’m very aware of it; and so is Claris. I think there’s a way to save both Claris and Natalie. Yet I need to do it myself.”

 

* * *

 

Elliot dreamed of Splash Garden where he met NiGHTS. He waved and yelled, “hey Nat,” when he realized something, “oh, I mean NiGHTS.”

NiGHTS cocked their head, “why did you call me Nat?”

“I think I may know something you don’t remember,” Elliot said, “But we need to merge before I do something.”

That was when a pink jester drill dashed towards NiGHTS and grabbed onto them. “You better not try to get to Selph, they are who completed me after all.”

“Claris, you are incomplete, but that’s a foundation of growing up,” Elliot said, “please come back to the waking world and I can help you figure out your problems.”

The pink jester looked directly at Elliot she closed her eyes and thought, “I don’t know a Claris, I only know of CLouD.”

NiGHTS broke free, then merged with Elliot. “Seriously,” they said simultaneously, “You are Claris. Remember the clocktower?”

Cloud paused for a moment and thought with her eyes tight shut. “I know of a clocktower, go on.”

“You sang in that clocktower, it was beautiful. You were in a white dress and we-- I mean I ran over to you.”

Cloud continued to close her eyes and imagined what was going on. When she opened her eyes, she realized: I am not CLouD, I’m Claris.” A light revolved around the pink jester and it spun around with five Idyea. Soon enough, CLouD became Claris again.

That was when everything began to storm. A shadowy creature came about and began to yell, “How dare you destroy my latest creation!” The shadow looked at NiGHTS, Claris, and Elliot, “on that note, how dare you all destroy my greatest creation!”

“You mean Wizeman?” Claris calmly voiced, “you tried to use me to rebuild what we have destroyed?”

“Unlike Wizeman, I cannot build creatures from scratch. I have to use those who are half children and half adults and use their inner selves and their Ideya to make powerful creatures. Hence why I redeemed as Selph. Wizeman was the most powerful of them all, and could create smaller nightmares from weaker youngling’s Ideya. The other two managed to create joined him. Now that NiGHTS rebelled, Reala disappeared, and Wizeman is gone; I am nothing.”

“Wait if you created Wizeman, who made you?” NiGHTS and Elliot asked.

“I come from the incomplete Ideya of completely grown dreamers,” Selph cried out, “the inner selves who never come to be.”

Claris merged with NiGHTS and NiGHTS doubled themselves to two. “Let’s get Selph.”

The fight was great, and the fight was hard. Yet one by one, Selph became less and less of their shadowy self, to the point that they burst into many stars.

Yet as the stars began to voice, “there will always be the incomplete dreams of you humans. You will never get me!”

At least, not for now.

 

* * *

 

From what Elliot heard the next morning: Claris reappeared in her bed. Claris tried out for Choir but didn’t get accepted like the other freshmen, but she was able to study the lines for and play a decent Gwendoline for The Importance of Being Ernest.

After the play, Elliot gave Claris some flowers. Claris smiled at Elliot, “any news on NiGHTS?”

“I told NiGHTS everything, but they said that they’re satisfied living an immortal life helping other dreamers complete their dreams so Selph will be unable to reform,” Elliot explained, “however, I did tell them about Greg and Gretchen. NiGHTS is pretty excited to have a niece and nephew.”

Claris began to cry as she had a big smile on her face. “Thank you,” said Claris, “thank you for saving me.”

“If Selph went for me first, you would have done the same,” said Elliot as he took a deep breath, “I didn’t make varsity this year.”

Claris’ tears began to dry a little, but she frowned, “well, there’s always next year.”

Elliot smiled, “and same for your choir. Always a year to practice. Plus, I may already know a major for college; that’s more than most 9th graders.”

Claris laughed, “I’m staying with Gretchen and Riley at the drama club. I also heard that Twins Community College has a good drama program. Also, with Les Mis this spring, I could make it as a chorus role, then maybe the choir director will be impressed with my 10th grade self.”

“Incomplete work eh?” Elliot winked, “seems like you’re figuring some things out.”

“Same for you,” Claris nudged Elliot, “Better get back on Minecraft before the Creepers get your creations.”

They both laughed. This duo may be works in progress, but they had the freedom to explore themselves.


End file.
